Given equal results, instructional designers recommend the least expensive option. Or do they?

To my regret, I recently deleted this sentence from my soon-to-be published book chapter:

Instructional
designers are ethically bound, that if all learning outcomes are equal,
to recommend the least expensive, most environmentally sensitive, and
most socio-culturally aware method.

I was asked to provide references to back up this claim. Hmm…isn’t this considered a tenet of instructional design?

Actually, isn’t this a basic truth about all designers everywhere? Part of the job of a designer is to

A) know all of the options and

B) know the strengths and weaknesses of those options which naturally leads a designer to

C)
present the options to their client, highlighting the designer’s
judgment of BEST choice, even if that best choice is not what the client
is hoping for.

But this lead to me to stop to really think about this: First, do instructional designers follow this prioritization when recommending media:

1. least expensive, aka cheapest, most cost effective
2. environmentally sensitive
3. socially just?

I
know the priorities’ positions are open for debate. Is most cost
effective the same as efficient? (Reigeluth would say no.) Should social
justice in a resource be considered equal with cost effective? (The
generalized failure of MOOCs says no.) I think a debate is overdue!

Second,
and more importantly, do instructional designers reach out and engage
their own powers in first assessing options and then being the voice of
wisdom in their work situations? I feel more passionate about this second conundrum than the first one. It is this point that I did write and keep my book chapter (publishing soon) and I am glad I stood my ground on that.

“Instructional
designers have the critical role of consulting on media choices for
their campuses. IDs can lead the way by advocating, recommending,
designing, assessing, and researching learning options.”

This
ability is powerful. You’ll find I’m first in line to advocate that
campus administrators should acknowledge that they have consultants on staff
in the form of instructional designers. After all, if one of the
characteristics of wisdom is to hold within one’s mind simultaneously
conflicting truths, I can’t think of a better description of a designer!
We often hold many truths (this is good for this, that is good for
that) and yet it does not bother us that no one media choice will solve
all problems. We are trained and paid to be wise; to recommend and to
help with real world messy choice.

I don’t have to be stuck in my contemplation. I have over 11,600 instructional designer friends in the Instructional Designers in Education Facebook group; a group that has grown and welcomed discussions of many kinds.

Thus, I asked for some wisdom of the crowds.

My concern was: Had they been exposed to this series of ideas (they have the power to recommend and they should engage priorities when doing s0) in their ID training?

So I ran an unscientific poll asking this, with the option for respondents to add their own answers, which they did.

Were you taught this as a tenet of instructional design:

Given
that all learning outcomes are equal, you are obligated to recommend
the learning resource that is: 1) cheapest 2) most environmentally
responsible 3) socially just.

The results:

• No. 38 votes.
• Not even no, never heard of it. What is this choice thing you refer to? (Admittedly, my own snarkily-worded choice.) 10 votes.
• Most effective for the learners (added choice) 6 votes.
• Just cheapest (added choice). 5 votes.
• Not
  all learning outcomes are equal (added by some person that missed my
  true point because I made all learning outcomes a given, which means
  they are not up for debate, but hey, discussion is discussion, so fair
  game AND I’ll take up the debate about learning outcomes later). 4
  votes.
• Yes. 1 vote.

I am thankful for the 64 votes and further comments. Much to my dismay, however, 48 votes indicated that they did not
remember getting exposed to either decision-making powers or the
ability to prioritize when making recommendations. There was only one
yes vote.

There
was one comment that reminded me that it was probably somewhere in
Merrill and Reigeluth’s writing where these concepts appeared. I checked
several Merrill and Reigeluth sources and found that they have indeed
been the voices advocating for instructional designers to have an active
role in their own professions self-description. I’ve picked just a few
highlights here:

See this gorgeous three page article called Reclaiming Instructional Design from Merrill, Drake, Lacy, Pratt, and ID₂ Research Group from 1966
(!!) within which they make the point that instructional design is a
science, new designers are streaming into the field (sound familiar
2021?) and instructional design should not be built ‘on the sands of
relativism’. Ho-ho! Those are fighting words!

Let’s add 40 years to this recipe. Reigeluth and Carr-Chellman make a rather great point in 2009 in their book chapter, Instructional Theory for Education in the Information Age when they wrote:

“Our
educational system was designed for a different era– the industrial
age – in which standardization and compliance were needed above all
else” (p. 390).

Further, they go on to argue that technology that allows for customization is needed more than technology that supports standardization. They write:

“My main reason for asking you to think about a vision for the information age paradigm of education is that we
need instructional theorists to contribute to a common knowledge base
for the new paradigm, not for the paradigm of a bygone era“ (p. 398, bold added).

Think
about that for a second. Are instructional designers designing NOW in
2021 for 2021 educational paradigms? Or for 2020? Or 2019? If you said
2019, you are probably right. What are we doing? We are designing
instruction for a bygone era now. Have we considered that instructional
design needs to change its focus and priorities?

Further by 2013, Reigeluth is practically calling out from the rooftop:

"There is a desperate need for theorists and researchers to generate 

and refine a new breed of learning-focused instructional design theories 

that help educators and trainers to meet those needs 

(i.e. that focus on learning and that foster the development of initiative, teamwork, 

thinking skills, and diversity)" (p. 27).

This does signal to me that instructional design as a profession is ready for a paradigm change.

It
grieves me to think that this group of trained professionals probably
isn’t using their powers of wisdom because first, someone is forgetting
to remind them (ahem, instructional design schools) and someone else
(ahem, campus human resource departments) isn’t writing that wisdom into
the job description or minimum salary (how much does a campus pay a
consultant versus how does a campus pay “staff”).

Why am I getting
so all worked up about this? We’re on the edge of discovering– as a
planet– that many technologically-facilitated forms of learning and
working are equal in terms of results. So the online option is now looking better than the on-campus one.

• Calls
  for learning approaches and media that are environmentally-sensitive
  follow lock-step with the movement now for remote work choices (i.e. an
  online science chemistry course requires less chemicals to worry about
  disposing of after a lab. It is simply put, more environmentally
  sensitive. Ditto virtual anatomy dissections. Ditto expensive hard copy
  textbook revisions…).
• Calls for opting for socially-just
  learning approaches and media (US history textbooks that spend more time
  on the economic causes of slavery than on the human cost) are long
  overdue. Ditto respect for women when selecting learning
  resources/methods. Ditto respect for indigenous populations. Ditto for
  incorporation of the viewpoint of minorities. Ditto for eliminating
  ageism. Ditto…ditto.

Time to get to work, instructional
design theorists, both those in the field and those that fight for the
profession. It’s a new age now.

I now write my sentence un-apologetically and with conviction.

Instructional
designers are ethically bound, that if all learning outcomes are equal,
to recommend the least expensive, most environmentally sensitive, and
most socio-culturally aware method.

P.S.
perhaps you are wondering about that given, “all learning outcomes
equal”. I have many strong things to say about that, specifically in
support of technology and VR-based education. But that’s for a future article.

Merrill, M. D., Drake, L., Lacy, M. J., Pratt, J., & ID₂ Research Group. (1996). Reclaiming instructional design. Educational Technology, 5-7. http://moemesto.ru/oleg_s_m/file/14270813/display/%C3%90%C2%BF%C3%90%C2%B5%C3%90%C2%B4%C3%90%C2%B0%C3%90%C2%B3%C3%90%C2%BE%C3%90%C2%B3%C3%90%C2%B8%C3%91%E2%80%A1%C3%90%C2%B5%C3%91%20%C3%90%C2%BA%C3%90%C2%B8%C3%90%C2%B9%20%C3%90%C2%B4%C3%90%C2%B8%C3%90%C2%B7%C3%90%C2%B0%C3%90%C2%B9%C3%90%C2%BD.pdf

Reigeluth, C.M. & Carr-Chellman, A.A. (Eds.). (2009.) Instructional-design theories and models. (Vol. 3, pp. 387-399).

Reigeluth, C. M. (2013). Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory, Volume II. Routledge.

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#LearningOutcomes #InstructionalDesign #design #designers #professionals #priorities #OnlineEducation

 

This article originally posted to LinkedIn on July 6, 2021. Edited to re-add images on February 21, 2026.